Escape from reality with "42nd Street" -- and Thor!

Tuesday

Nov 7, 2017 at 4:18 PMNov 8, 2017 at 12:11 PM

What do "42nd Street," "Thor: Ragnarok" and King Crimson have in common?

Pete Chianca

It’s been a busy few days of entertainment consumption for me, an unusual development given my belief that nights and weekends are a time best spent communing with the things that are most important in your life, such as your couch. I have a wonderful me-shaped dent in mine that I’ve carved out from months and months of forcing children and dogs to skootch over, and when I’m not in it I sometimes hear it calling to me, like a sorting hat for your butt.

Yet through an unforeseen series of circumstances I found myself at three very different but, in their own ways, spectacularly fulfilling entertainment events over the last few nights. Best of all, they all provided a welcome respite from the problems of the day, the main one being our country imploding upon itself, something you may have noticed if you’re ever on Twitter.

With that in mind, I’d encourage you to check out the following:

1) “Thor: Ragnarok.” When I first heard the name of the new Thor movie I assumed it would be awful, for the simple reason that there has never been a decent movie with a made-up word in the title. (Example: “eXistenZ,” which you should run right out and not see.)

But it turns out it’s one of the best comic book movies ever, with Chris Hemsworth showing off the comedy chops he’s honed as a guest host on “Saturday Night Live,” and the Hulk finally being given a speaking role, turning him into the funniest and most ingratiating sidekick since Whoopi Goldberg in “Ghost.” (With a touch of Dana Carvey’s Garth and a bit of John Belushi’s Bluto thrown into the mix.) I would definitely endorse a joint Oscar nomination for Mark Ruffalo and whatever they taped to his head to motion capture him.

Add Jeff Goldblum playing Jeff Goldblum with a blue chin, and you have a Marvel movie masterpiece. If it only had less fighting and more Thor and Hulk nagging each other like Felix and Oscar in a road show company of “The Odd Couple,” it would have been perfect.

2) “42nd Street” at North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly. Philistine that I am, I struggled a bit to appreciate NSMT’s last production, the rock opera “Evita” -- I just kept thinking of that line from the song “A Musical” in “Something Rotten,” “Why aren’t they TALKING?”

I was much more in my comfort zone for “42nd Street,” a refreshingly irony-free old-fashioned musical comedy with a rags-to-riches story reminiscent of “Singin’ in the Rain” -- but better, because it doesn’t have the memory of perhaps the best screen musical ever made hanging over its head. (It’s based on a 1933 movie nobody remembers, so you won’t constantly be comparing the cast to Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds, which isn’t good for anybody.)

It would be hard to overstate the, well, effervescence -- there’s no other word -- of this talented cast, in particular Jessica Wokenfuss (quite possibly the best actress name ever) as the ingenue who has to “come back a star” when she takes over for injured leading lady Dorothy Brock, played by the hilarious and touching Tari Kelly.

Wokenfuss had me at “hello” -- she could have burst into “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” and I would have bought it. Throw in some of the best hoofing this side of Broadway and you’ve got a magical night on your hands. (Note: By hoofing I mean dancing, not horseshoeing, which is a completely different thing. Boy did I find that out the hard way.)

3) King Crimson (at the Orpheum Theatre). Let me say right off that bat that I don’t know anything about King Crimson, and went to this show with a friend who couldn’t find anyone else to go with him because NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT KING CRIMSON.

Or so I thought -- the thousands of satisfied customers in the theater that night clearly knew their whole catalog and couldn’t have been happier, save for the few who were escorted out for using their cellphones during the show. (King Crimson leader Robert Fripp is anti-cellphone, and if he was American I’d elect him president on that platform alone.)

Anyway, when you see three drum kits lined up at the front of the stage, you know that either the roadies got toasted early or you’re in for something completely different. And different it was: First of all, their were three drummers (sorry, percussionists) to go with those kits. Fripp was astounding going back and forth between guitar and keys (and possibly some sort of futuristic music delivery mainframe), and watching the band meticulously churn through its “hits” (in quotes because I’m not sure they’ve ever sold more than eight records at a time) was like watching some weird, space-age combination of classical precision, stunning jazz chops and heart-stopping hard rock bombast.

Granted, there were times I wasn’t sure where one song ended and the next one began, but when a band can make you actually appreciate a drum solo -- a drum solo! -- who cares? It’s a sight to behold. (The band is on tour through November.)

So I’d heartily recommend all three of the above -- after all, as North Shore Music Theatre Producing Artistic Director Kevin Hill said in his introduction to “42nd Street,” “We all deserve moments of diversion.” And you’re probably not going to find them on Twitter.